Wiring New Home Uverse Internet, TV, Voice

Hello,

I am trying to determine the best selection for wiring my new home, which we are getting ready to build, to get the best quality and speed. Here are my thoughts I have a diagram unfortunately could not attach it.

I currently have the NVG 589 that has a cat 5e line from the outside that splits to the data and phone line 1 and 2 on the back of the gateway.

Hence my thoughts were run Cat 6A to the router from the outside and run the extra wires back to the input phone conncetion on the outside of house.

This would give option of using wired phones for emergency use. Or regular use if desired.

Next have a coax cable run to plug into the output of the gateway for the TV receivers. (I expect to end up with 1 wired receiver and 1 wireless reciever)

Finally from recievers run HDMI to TVs

My understanding of the different pieces is limited. Can anyone confirm that this setup works as I laid it out? and is this the best way?

1) Do not mix services on same cable. Keep the whole cable for higher future bandwidth. Run multiple cables.

2) You now have u-verse voice terminated at the RG. If you run a cable to outside for tel, that is POTS, not u-verse voice. That may or may not continue to be available for install. You cannot have u-verse voice & switch to POTS if u-verse is out. It needs to be installed up front.

3) COAX is obsolete for TV. Run cat5 or cat6 for each TV. RUn a second cable for internet device at the same location.

4)You can connect TVs via HDMI, but do not seal it up. Make sure you have access to install a component cable should your TVs not play nice with u-verse.

2) You now have u-verse voice terminated at the RG. If you run a cable to outside for tel, that is POTS, not u-verse voice. That may or may not continue to be available for install. You cannot have u-verse voice & switch to POTS if u-verse is out. It needs to be installed up front.

-By POTS I assume you mean plain old telephone service? This was actually my thought running this way I can maintain energency over standard lines and or connect the RG to a VoIP phone (one base unit with multiple handsets)

Based on cost I was thinking of just using the cell phones as we have three of them. With the POTS for 911 type calls. With this setup (outside to RG then RG back to outside) does the RG simplely function as if it is not there sort of a pass through only?

3) COAX is obsolete for TV. Run cat5 or cat6 for each TV. Run a second cable for internet device at the same location.

Is there a noticable difference in the quality if you run coax to receiver than HDMI to TV as opposed to cat5e to reciever then HDMI to TV

4)You can connect TVs via HDMI, but do not seal it up. Make sure you have access to install a component cable should your TVs not play nice with u-verse.

The builder is installing a smurf tube so I can run whatever cabling is needed through this.

5) Do wireless TV receivers need the wireless access point? Why don't they just talk to the RG?

Depends. If you are on Gigapower, then you may get an NVG599 which has a 5.0 GHz radio and does obviate the need for the separate WAP. Otherwise, you do need the separate WAP because the RG doesn't (otherwise) have 5.0 GHz.

Award for Community Excellence 2019 Achiever**I am not an AT&T employee, and the views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.

RE: 2, Yes POTS is plain old telephone service. It can be run over the same pair providing U-verse VDSL2 signal, but you need a VDSL filter somewhere (usually at the NID), and use separate pairs for POTS vs. VDSL2 from there out.

If you have U-verse Voice, then the dial tone originates at the back of the RG. It is not unusual to backfeed this throughout the home for the center pair of extensions, you just need to make sure that the backfeed pair doesn't get connected at the NID.

The TV is a digital signal whether you use HPNA over coax or Ethernet over Cat5+ TP, it's actually UDP/IP; primarily multicast but unicast in some situations. Both work, but fittings, etc. with Coax seem to be more problematic than the good-ole RJ45 connector, so AT&T has been moving towards always using TP, and I can't say I disagree with them. Any difference in picture quality would be to dropped packets because of physical line issues.

Award for Community Excellence 2019 Achiever**I am not an AT&T employee, and the views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.

I would stay away from Cat5. Go with at least Cat5e. I think Cat5, used for ethernet, is good for 100 Mb/s. Cat5e can handle 1000 Mb/s, but at that speed it has a limited length. Cat6 is better for 1000 Mb/s - especially for long runs. There is also Cat6a.

You can probably get Cat6 for not much more than Cat5e. Remember that once the house is built, upgrading might be difficult. Also, if for outdoor use, you should have UV rated cable, and for indoor use you may need plenum rated cable for some runs. And some building codes may require that you use a fire-block sealant where the cable goes thru studs and the like.